BAGHDAD, Iraq - Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad on Friday praising the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and denouncing Israel and the United States for attacks against Lebanon. Some protesters said they were ready to fight the Israelis.The demonstrations started immediately after Muslims left Friday prayers in mosques around the county. Thousands of people chanted slogans and carrying banners denouncing the Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. “No, no to Israel, no no to America,” chanted some of the more than 5,000 demonstrators in Baghdad’s eastern neighborhood of Sadr City. “Oh God make (Hezbollah’s leader) Hassan Nasrallah victorious.”
“Let everyone understand that we will not stand idle,” read one of the banners carried by the demonstrators. “Iraq and Lebanon are calling, enough silence Arabs,” read another.
In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai, representative of Iraq’s top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani said” we condemn the Zionist terrorist offensive against Lebanon that targeted the infrastructure of this country, while Hezbollah hasn’t targeted the infrastructure of the Zionists. They targeted military facilities.”
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Al-Sadr, a Shiite who launched two uprisings against the Americans in 2004, said in a statement that “our hearts are aching because of what is happening in Lebanon, the attacks by the terrorist Zionist enemy under cover from America which is the enemy of people.”
“Despite the occupation and the difficult situation that we are passing through we put our hands in yours and we are with you not with your enemy,” al-Sadr said. “no and 1,000 no to Israel.”